C. C. Joggerst

CASTRO: A NEW COMPRESSIBLE ASTROPHYSICAL SOLVER. I. HYDRODYNAMICS AND SELF-GRAVITY

We present a new code, CASTRO, that solves the multicomponent compressible hydrodynamic equations for astrophysical flows including self-gravity, nuclear reactions, and radiation. CASTRO uses an Eulerian grid and incorporates adaptive mesh refinement (AMR). Our approach to AMR uses a nested hierarchy of logically rectangular grids with simultaneous refinement in both space and time. The radiation component of CASTRO will be described in detail in the next paper, Part II, of this series.

MIXING IN ZERO-AND SOLAR-METALLICITY SUPERNOVAE

Two-dimensional simulations of mixing and fallback in nonrotating massive stars have been carried out using realistic initial models for the presupernova star and assuming standard spherically symmetric explosions of 1.2 ? 1051 erg. Stars of 15 and 25 M ? with both primordial and solar composition were modeled. The zero-metallicity supernova progenitors were compact blue stars, and the amount of Rayleigh-Taylor induced mixing in them was greatly reduced compared with what was seen in the red supergiants with solar metallicity. The compact zero-metal stars also experienced more fallback than their solar-metallicity counterparts. As a result, the ejected nucleosynthesis from the two populations was very different. For the simple explosion model assumed, low-metallicity stars ejected too little iron and intermediate-mass elements even to explain the abundance patterns in the most iron-poor stars found to date, suggesting that some important ingredient is missing. Rotation is likely to alter these conclusions by producing a greater fraction of red supergiants among Population III stars. The velocities of the heavy elements in all models considered?both red and blue supergiants?were less than observed in SN 1987A, suggesting that, at least occasionally, asymmetric aspects of the explosion mechanism and fallback play a major role in mixing.

The Early Evolution of Primordial Pair-instability Supernovae

The observational signatures of the first cosmic explosions and their chemical imprint on second-generation stars both crucially depend on how heavy elements mix within the star at the earliest stages of the blast. We present numerical simulations of the early evolution of Population III pair-instability supernovae with the new adaptive mesh refinement code CASTRO. In stark contrast to 15 - 40 Msun core-collapse primordial supernovae, we find no mixing in most 150 - 250 Msun pair-instability supernovae out to times well after breakout from the surface of the star. This may be the key to determining the mass of the progenitor of a primeval supernova, because vigorous mixing will cause emission lines from heavy metals such as Fe and Ni to appear much sooner in the light curves of core-collapse supernovae than in those of pair-instability explosions. Our results also imply that unlike low-mass Pop III supernovae, whose collective metal yields can be directly compared to the chemical abundances of extremely metal-poor stars, further detailed numerical simulations will be required to determine the nucleosynthetic imprint of very massive Pop III stars on their direct descendants.

SUPERMASSIVE POPULATION III SUPERNOVAE AND THE BIRTH OF THE FIRST QUASARS

The existence of supermassive black holes as early as z ~ 7 is one of the great, unsolved problems in cosmological structure formation. One leading theory argues that they are born during catastrophic baryon collapse in z ~?15 protogalaxies that form in strong Lyman-Werner UV backgrounds. Atomic line cooling in such galaxies fragments baryons into massive clumps that are thought to directly collapse to 104-105 M ? black holes. We have now discovered that some of these fragments can instead become supermassive stars that eventually explode as thermonuclear supernovae (SNe) with energies of ~1055 erg, the most energetic explosions in the universe. We have calculated light curves and spectra for supermassive Pop III SNe with the Los Alamos RAGE and SPECTRUM codes. We find that they will be visible in near-infrared all-sky surveys by Euclid out to z ~ 10-15 and by WFIRST and WISH out to z ~ 15-20, perhaps revealing the birthplaces of the first quasars.

3D simulations of Rayleigh-Taylor mixing in core-collapse SNe with CASTRO

We present multidimensional simulations of the post-explosion hydrodynamics in three different 15 solar mass supernova models with zero, 10^{-4} solar metallicity, and solar metallicities. We follow the growth of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability that mixes together the stellar layers in the wake of the explosion. Models are initialized with spherically symmetric explosions and perturbations are seeded by the grid. Calculations are performed in two-dimensional axisymmetric and three-dimensional Cartesian coordinates using the new Eulerian hydrodynamics code, CASTRO. We find as in previous work, that Rayleigh-Taylor perturbations initially grow faster in 3D than in 2D. As the Rayleigh-Taylor fingers interact with one another, mixing proceeds to a greater degree in 3D than in 2D, reducing the local Atwood number and slowing the growth rate of the instability in 3D relative to 2D. By the time mixing has stopped, the width of the mixed region is similar in 2D and 3D simulations provided the Rayleigh-Taylor fingers show significant interaction. Our results imply that 2D simulations of light curves and nucleosynthesis in supernovae (SNe) that die as red giants may capture the features of an initially spherically symmetric explosion in far less computational time than required by a full 3D simulation. However, capturing large departures from spherical symmetry requires a significantly perturbed explosion. Large scale asymmetries cannot develop through an inverse cascade of merging Rayleigh-Taylor structures; they must arise from asymmetries in the initial explosion.

Cross-code comparisons of mixing during the implosion of dense cylindrical and spherical shells

We present simulations of the implosion of a dense shell in two-dimensional (2D) spherical and cylindrical geometry performed with four different compressible, Eulerian codes: RAGE, FLASH, CASTRO, and PPM. We follow the growth of instabilities on the inner face of the dense shell. Three codes employed Cartesian grid geometry, and one (FLASH) employed polar grid geometry. While the codes are similar, they employ different advection algorithms, limiters, adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) schemes, and interface-preservation techniques. We find that the growth rate of the instability is largely insensitive to the choice of grid geometry or other implementation details specific to an individual code, provided the grid resolution is sufficiently fine. Overall, all simulations from different codes compare very well on the fine grids for which we tested them, though they show slight differences in small-scale mixing. Simulations produced by codes that explicitly limit numerical diffusion show a smaller amount of small-scale mixing than codes that do not. This difference is most prominent for low-mode perturbations where little instability finger interaction takes place, and less prominent for high- or multi-mode simulations where a great deal of interaction takes place, though it is still present. We present RAGE and FLASH simulations to quantify the initial perturbation amplitude to wavelength ratio at which metrics of mixing agree across codes, and find that bubble/spike amplitudes are converged for low-mode and high-mode simulations in which the perturbation amplitude is more than 1% and 5% of the wavelength of the perturbation, respectively. Other metrics of small-scale mixing depend on details of multi-fluid advection and do not converge between codes for the resolutions that were accessible.

Three-dimensional Simulations of Rayleigh-Taylor Mixing in Core-collapse Supernovae with Castro

We present multidimensional simulations of the post-explosion hydrodynamics in three different 15 solar mass supernova models with zero, 10^{-4} solar metallicity, and solar metallicities. We follow the growth of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability that mixes together the stellar layers in the wake of the explosion. Models are initialized with spherically symmetric explosions and perturbations are seeded by the grid. Calculations are performed in two-dimensional axisymmetric and three-dimensional Cartesian coordinates using the new Eulerian hydrodynamics code, CASTRO. We find as in previous work, that Rayleigh-Taylor perturbations initially grow faster in 3D than in 2D. As the Rayleigh-Taylor fingers interact with one another, mixing proceeds to a greater degree in 3D than in 2D, reducing the local Atwood number and slowing the growth rate of the instability in 3D relative to 2D. By the time mixing has stopped, the width of the mixed region is similar in 2D and 3D simulations provided the Rayleigh-Taylor fingers show significant interaction. Our results imply that 2D simulations of light curves and nucleosynthesis in supernovae (SNe) that die as red giants may capture the features of an initially spherically symmetric explosion in far less computational time than required by a full 3D simulation. However, capturing large departures from spherical symmetry requires a significantly perturbed explosion. Large scale asymmetries cannot develop through an inverse cascade of merging Rayleigh-Taylor structures; they must arise from asymmetries in the initial explosion.

THREE-DIMENSIONAL SIMULATIONS OF RAYLEIGH-TAYLOR MIXING IN CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAE

We present multidimensional simulations of the post-explosion hydrodynamics in three different 15 solar mass supernova models with zero, 10^{-4} solar metallicity, and solar metallicities. We follow the growth of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability that mixes together the stellar layers in the wake of the explosion. Models are initialized with spherically symmetric explosions and perturbations are seeded by the grid. Calculations are performed in two-dimensional axisymmetric and three-dimensional Cartesian coordinates using the new Eulerian hydrodynamics code, CASTRO. We find as in previous work, that Rayleigh-Taylor perturbations initially grow faster in 3D than in 2D. As the Rayleigh-Taylor fingers interact with one another, mixing proceeds to a greater degree in 3D than in 2D, reducing the local Atwood number and slowing the growth rate of the instability in 3D relative to 2D. By the time mixing has stopped, the width of the mixed region is similar in 2D and 3D simulations provided the Rayleigh-Taylor fingers show significant interaction. Our results imply that 2D simulations of light curves and nucleosynthesis in supernovae (SNe) that die as red giants may capture the features of an initially spherically symmetric explosion in far less computational time than required by a full 3D simulation. However, capturing large departures from spherical symmetry requires a significantly perturbed explosion. Large scale asymmetries cannot develop through an inverse cascade of merging Rayleigh-Taylor structures; they must arise from asymmetries in the initial explosion.

ERRATUM: “PAIR-INSTABILITY SUPERNOVAE IN THE LOCAL UNIVERSE” (2014, ApJ, 797, 9)

The discovery of 150–300 M stars in the Local Group and pair-instability supernova candidates at low redshifts has excited interest in this exotic explosion mechanism. Realistic light curves for pair-instability supernovae at near-solar metallicities are key to identifying and properly interpreting these events as more are found. We have modeled pair-instability supernovae of 150–500 M Z ∼ 0.1–0.4 Z stars. These stars lose up to 80% of their mass to strong line-driven winds and explode as bare He cores. We find that their light curves and spectra are quite different from those of Population III pair-instability explosions, which therefore cannot be used as templates for low-redshift events. Although non-zero metallicity pair-instability supernovae are generally dimmer than their Population III counterparts, in some cases they will be bright enough to be detected at the earliest epochs at which they can occur, the formation of the first galaxies at z ∼ 10–15. Others can masquerade as dim, short duration supernovae that are only visible in the local universe and that under the right conditions could be hidden in a wide variety of supernova classes. We also report for the first time that some pair-instability explosions can create black holes with masses of ∼100 M .